While it needn’t be said that Made in Heaven is obviously a work of fiction, the Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti-created series definitely plays on many real-life scenarios that have shaped its addictive storyline. For instance, the first episode, brilliantly explores Indians’ deep-rooted fascination for a lighter skin tone, according to Aditya Motwane, founder, Motwane Entertainment and Weddings, who planned Kiara Advani-Sidharth Malhotra’s lavish wedding earlier this year. (Also read: Made in Heaven Season 2 review)
The first episode, titled Mirror Mirror on the Wall, directed by Nitya Mehra features a dusky bride, who is made to believe by her own mother and future in-laws that she can look prettier if her skin were a few tones lighter. Speaking about it, Aditya Motwane said, “What really touched me was the first episode, it is true to Indian weddings. Every Punjabi family wants a very fair and pretty girl. Unfortunately this is how it is in India. The time when she broke into a rash after a skin lightening treatment, and she could not do a hen party, but they gave her a great photoshoot with Sabyasachi. That touched me, because that was great thinking. Look, they made her dress up and all her friends had a great time, did a lovely photoshoot, which are memories for sure.”
Not everything is true
Touchwood Group’s director Vijay Arora, who has orchestrated nearly 500 weddings around the world, agrees Made in Heaven acknowledges the hardworking professionals behind the grand Indian weddings — wedding planners, the too-often unsung heroes of the celebrations, who regularly invest hundreds of hours of work on each event. “The series does reflect situations we encounter as wedding planners, like handling family disagreements tactfully,” he said.
When watching Made in Heaven, it’s easy to get swept up in the messy, dramatic personal and professional lives of the wedding planners — led by Sobhita Dhulipala’s Tara and Arjun Mathur’s Karan — and their clients. However, Vijay Arora did question some depictions on the show, suggesting they were exaggerated, or just plain wrong. He said, “Honestly, I don’t find a strong connection between what we do in real life and what’s portrayed in the show. The show seems quite different from the reality of our work.”
He explained what was missing from Made in Heaven 2, “One aspect that I find hard to relate to in the series is the idea of only four people managing an entire wedding. In reality, we typically require a team of at least 15 to 20 individuals to effectively handle all the on-site aspects of a wedding. Another aspect that stands out is the use of just one photographer (Shashank Arora’s Kabir) for every wedding in the series. From both the planner’s perspective and the client’s standpoint, this seems challenging to achieve. The logistics of capturing diverse moments and perspectives usually demand a more comprehensive photography team.”
Parents don’t elope from weddings
While accuracy shouldn’t have to matter in a fictional show, Aditya Motwane says ‘there’s a difference in what you see on the show, and what we see in real life’, giving the example of the third episode, titled And They Lived Happily Ever After. “On the show, you need to show a bit of content that gets people captivated. For instance, Samir Soni and Neelam Kothari’s episode. They hooked up because they were college friends and they suddenly decided to elope at their kids’ wedding. Now that is something that you don’t get to see in normal weddings because it does not happen like that. There is so much reputation and social standing in question.”
Further talking about real wedding planners, he said, “Everyone has a dream about their wedding. You know as they say ‘Weddings are made in heaven, but wedding planners go through hell’. And I will 100 percent say that. Marriages are made in heaven, but please believe me, wedding planners go through hell. But we wedding planners make that process of going through hell, like heaven for our clients, for our teams. Each wedding that we do is more than $4-5 million, goes upto ₹25-30 crore. And when you are running that kind of money, you cannot let one thing go wrong. You have to make sure you use all clients’ contacts, all their years of relationships. When the client says ‘Let’s call Shah Rukh Khan for our son’s wedding or let’s call the prime minister for our son’s wedding,’ you do it.”
About Made in Heaven
Made in Heaven season 2 began streaming on Prime Video on August 9. In the new season, Sobhita Dhulipala and Arjun Mathur are back as wedding planners, organising grander weddings with more drama and chaos. Recently veteran actors Zeenat Aman and Simi Garewal, and actor Katrina Kaif reviewed the web series, praising Made in Heaven 2 makers and cast on Instagram.
Apart from Sobhita and Arjun, Made In Heaven 2 features the same cast as season 1 – Kalki Koechlin, Jim Sarbh, Shashank Arora and Shivangi Rastogi – along with some new faces, such as Mona Singh, Ishwak Singh and Trinetra Haldar. Actors such as Radhika Apte, Shibani Dandekar, Mrunal Thakur and Neelam Kothari, among others, were seen as brides in the second season, which had episodes directed by Zoya Akhtar, Reema Kagti, Neeraj Ghaywan, Alankrita Shrivastava and Nitya Mehra.